Comparative Effects of Milk Containing A1 versus A2 β-Casein on Health, Growth and β-Casomorphin-7 Level in Plasma of Neonatal Dairy Calves

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The manuscript is an interesting study about the effects of milk containing either homozygote A1 or A2 β-CN on health 27 and growth parameters of dairy calves.

My suggestions for improving this manuscript in attached file.

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Line 22-23: please include a "conclusion" statement. What is the main message from your data?

Line 28: what was the sex distribution?

Line 33-34: was solid feed provided? please be clear

Line 34-37: were calves developing intestinal digestive issues treated in some fashion? please indicate here

Line 38: indicate the actual protein content in the two groups

Overall, it is felt the abstract could include more actual data.

Line 87-93: somewhere here you need to state the hypothesis

Line 98: what does this statement really mean??

Line 152: for any ELISA assay please include inter- and intra-assay CV

Overall, good discussion of the data.

 

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 3 Report

Dear Authors,
only some minor suggestions:

170 - seems that the acronym FG has not been defined before in the text
227 - the acronym bpm is commonly associated to heart rate more than to Respiratory Rate

299 - if P<0.1 is not a typo the difference  between 49 and 56 bpm is not worthy of mention 

327 - is understandable that B1 samples were only 15 instead of 34 (B2,B3) but it would be better to clarify the reason for this difference.

Best Regards
AM

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

The authors corrected the manuscript according to the recommendations.